New study: S. Florida's economy continues to strengthen

A new study shows South Florida is still distressed economically after the Great Recession hit five years ago, but the region is still better off than Orlando and Tampa-St. Petersburg.

In fact, Orlando and Tampa-St. Petersburg continue to have the most financially distressed households among the 30 largest metro areas in the nation, but South Florida, while the sixth most distressed, has shown almost as much economic improvement as the national average, according to the latest CredAbility Consumer Distress Index. The nonprofit credit counseling agency conducts the index nationally to survey how categories such as housing, employment and families' savings rate are doing.

One of the biggest improvements for South Florida: The unemployment had dropped from 9.5 percent to 8.1 for Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties as a whole, by the end of 2012, said Broc Rosser, Florida president for CredAbility, a nonprofit counseling agency.

"That's a huge improvement," he said.

South Floridians are also helping themselves by saving more, Rosser added. South Floridians are saving on average nearly 5 percent of their income, he said.

The main thorn in South Florida's recovery is the three counties are still trying to emerge from the housing bust and the massive number of foreclosures that hit the region, Rosser said.

"Housing problems are the main cause of financial distress for households" in South Florida, said Scott Scredon, a spokesman for CredAbility. "While mortgage delinquency rates are coming down, they remain the highest in the nation."

About 17 percent of South Florida homeowners were delinquent on mortgage payments from July to October of last year, Scredon said.